May the calm be widespreadMay the sea glisten like the greenstoneAnd may the glimmer of summer dance across your pathways

Monday, April 26, 2010

Create mini green houses with 2 items

Recycle your empty one gallon milk jugs and use them in your garden.

All you need for this project, are your empty milk jugs and some metal plant support stakes, as you see in the photo. Start by cutting out the bottom of the milk jug, careful now, we don't want any cut fingers.

Place bottomless milk jug over plant, and looking through the top of the milk jug, so you won't stab your plant, push the metal plant support down into the soil so it rests on the rim of the jug.

You will now have happy little plants (like my eggplants) in their mini-greenhouses which won't blow away in the wind, because you have them secured in place, with a plant support. cool eh?

See, there is a happy little eggplant in it's new home, nourished in rich soil and watered by the condensation running down the sides of the jug. So instead of taking all your empty jugs to the recycle center, use some of them in your garden to protect your new starts from the cold, ( I don't mean bone chilling kind of cold, I meanearly -mid Spring kind of cold) until it is warm enough to unveil the plants.Also watch that the plants do not out grow the mini-houses or their leaves touch the wet wall and start to rot, at this time you could create larger enclosures ( for heat loving plants like peppers and eggplant ) using wooden stakes and sheet plastic, as I will be doing. (upcoming post)

Your garden efforts are looking great - extra heat and protection for an early start is really beneficial.

Thanks for sharing your friend Janet's site with me. No I didn't know of her - but do now. I had a very pleasant time reading and looking at her lovely quilts. I think I like the tall skinny series best. They are all quite abstract and I like that.

Do you ever have problems with birds? I'm thinking of fencing in my garden with 8' chicken wire (or something similar) and wonder about closing it in completely. Something ate all my peppers last year, just as the buds appeared and I thought I had it rabbit proofed with a 3' high fence. I never saw any deer prints in the garden. Could it be birds?

Mama Mia, I have had problems with birds eating the young pea seedlings, then I started covering them with a tunnel of chicken wire until they were about 4 inches tall. I don't know if birds would eat the pepper plants. Fencing your garden is a good idea if you have a problem with rabbits, as for enclosing it totally, well That seems like a big job, you could just protect the individual plants with bird netting or such.